Daily News

World – G20 and Ciett call for stronger employment services

22 July 2013

The G20 labour ministers stressed their commitment to solving the current unemployment crisis, and have called for stronger employment services and multiple forms of work to achieve more inclusive labour markets, according to the international confederation of private employment agencies (Ciett).

Ciett welcomed the recommendation of the G20 labour ministers to strengthen labour markets by improving matching of labour demand and supply through effective employment services. The labour ministers recognised that cooperation between public and private employment services, along with stronger links between education and work, is key to deliver effective active labour market programmes to tackle unemployment.

Ciett also welcomed the ministers' recommendation to allow multiple forms of work as a way to increase labour market participation and reduce social exclusion and unemployment. Ciett fully endorsed this call and stressed that multiple forms of employment are a gateway into employment. In particular, temporary agency work offers an accessible entry port into the workforce, especially for young people, and helps people remain in employment by facilitating their transitions into other employment opportunities with the stepping stone function.

This double stepping-stone function of agency work, from unemployment to work and from one employment opportunity to the next, has been recently confirmed in the joint report by Eurociett and UNI Europa on "the role of temporary agency work and labour market transitions in Europe". The report demonstrates that temporary agency work opens the labour market to young people; 37% of agency workers in Belgium, 46% in the Netherlands and 33% in Italy are under 25 years old, and offers a stepping-stone for them to stay in employment beyond agency work; 48% of temporary agency workers in the UK and 33% in the Netherlands move to permanent work within the year.

Ciett called on the G20 Leaders to endorse the Declaration of the G20 labour ministers and to build on the positive recognition of the key role of private employment services in enhancing the functioning of labour markets.

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